by Andrew Coté
New York City is among the few jurisdictions in the country that deem beekeeping illegal, lumping the honey bee together with hyenas, tarantulas, cobras, dingoes and other animals considered too dangerous or venomous for city life. But the honey bee’s bad rap—and the days of urban beekeepers being outlaws—may soon be over….
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s board will take up the issue of amending the health code to allow residents to keep hives of Apis mellifera, the common, nonaggressive honey bee. Health department officials said the change was being considered after research showed that the reports of bee stings in the city were minimal and that honey bees did not pose a public health threat.
The officials were also prodded by beekeepers who, in a petition and at a public hearing last month, argued that their hives promoted sustainable agriculture in the city.
This was, of course, after about two years of petitioning, meetings with city officials, conversations with groups like Slow Food and Just Food, and holding powwows of our own with NYCBA members. I worked a great deal with now-retired Nancy Clark, then Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Disease Protection at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). She openly wanted to help us in our endeavor but wanted to do so safely—a shared goal—and in a way that would limit liability for the city and not put more responsibility on the shoulders of an already overburdened DOHMH. In the end, the results were bittersweet. We won the battle to legalize harboring beehives, but with virtually no regulation or enforcement, it has led to some questionable beekeeping practices that are technically permissible. But it has worked out well overall.
In any event, the day that there was to be a city council public hearing and vote on whether to lift the restriction on harboring honey bees, the hearing room was packed with a standing-room-only crowd. But the mass turnout was not solely for the humble honey bee; there was a strong equestrian element in the room. Though horses and bees do not get along, apiarists and hippophiles can be quite chummy. As it turned out, most of the meeting’s attendees were horse lovers who were there to engage in what became an astonishingly vicious—and vociferous—battle of words between those who wished to end the practice of allowing horse-drawn carriages in and around Central Park and those who opposed any change to the regulations. Emotions ran so high one would have thought old nags were being turned into glue right there in front of us, and that the event was being catered by a group from Kamikōchi serving their regional specialty. Amid the fracas, anyone who wished to speak was given five minutes to make their remarks. There were two stenographers, one to take down testimony regarding the bees and one regarding the horses. During my five minutes, dressed like a big boy in a suit and tie and seated on the stage before the panel and the audience, I mingled my comments on bees and horses just enough to watch the two stenographers eye each other and laugh in confusion.
In retrospect, the heated exchanges and heightened emotions in the room may have drawn angst away from the relatively serene debate on beekeeping. Though “debate” may not be the right word—not one person spoke against the idea of making beekeeping legal, and the measure passed unanimously. The health code now reads in part:
Section 161.01(b)(12)…requires beekeepers in New York City to “adhere to appropriate beekeeping practices including maintaining bee colonies in movable-frame hives that are kept in sound and usable condition; providing a constant and adequate water source; locating hives so that the movement of bees does not become an animal nuisance, as defined in § 161.02 of this Article; and shall be able to respond immediately to control bee swarms and to remediate nuisance conditions.” Section 161.02 defines a beekeeping nuisance to “mean conditions that include, but not be limited to, aggressive or objectionable bee behaviors, hive placement or bee movement that interferes with pedestrian traffic or persons residing on or adjacent to the hive premises; and overcrowded, deceased or abandoned hives.”
Of course, things don’t always work out as would be ideal. Bees do indeed swarm, people are inattentive, and there are consequences to poor management or just unlucky situations. DOHMH can levy fines for infractions that measure in the thousands of dollars. Still, there are more pluses than minuses to keeping honey bees in an urban environment.
As for being safe, certainly it is safer to keep a box of bees on a balcony than to try to cross Queens Boulevard on foot, the thoroughfare nicknamed “the Boulevard of Death” due to the high mortality rate of pedestrians who unsuccessfully attempt crossings. And in New York City, the danger of being eliminated from the population via honey bee stings is far smaller than the danger from falling appliances; many more people have received their own angelic wings by falling victim to plummeting air conditioners when simply strolling down a city sidewalk. Lastly, at the time that the city’s health department decided in its infinite wisdom to allow those of us who want to keep beehives to do so, First Lady Michelle Obama was busy setting up not only an organic garden but a beehive on the White House lawn (she also visited my beehives atop the Waldorf Astoria). It is safe to say that if the Secret Service allowed the two most heavily protected children in the country to frolic in close proximity to seventy-five thousand bees—Sasha and Malia were known to play in that area—the flying creatures can be assumed not to pose a serious threat.
The practice of high-ranking United States politicians keeping colonies of honey bees did not start with the Obamas. Way back in 1787, George Washington had a “bee house built on the grounds of Mount Vernon which he had inherited,” according to the late great Eva Crane, quantum mathematician turned bee researcher.
Washington was not the only president to keep honey bees, or to at least have an interest in them. Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, was also fond of honey bees and honey. Jefferson’s overseer, Edmund Bacon, was a beekeeper. Bacon wrote of how Jefferson came to visit his forty colonies of honey bees. Jefferson’s interest was not in passing. He discussed honey bees in his Notes on the State of Virginia, saying in part, “The honey bee is not a native of our continent….[Honey] bees have generally extended themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white settlers. The Indians therefore call them the white man’s fly, and consider their approach as indicating the approach of the settlements of whites.” Jefferson even owned a British book from the mid-1700s entitled Collateral Bee-Boxes: Or, a New, Easy, and Advantageous Method of Managing Bees. As of this writing, beehives are kept at Jefferson’s former property, Monticello, and the honey from those hives has been used in the Virginia governor’s mansion and even at the White House. As it happens, Jefferson appears on the two-dollar bill, which I keep stacks of at the farmers’ market, and give customers change in the under-circulated note. The bill is attractive, unusual, and in most cases is a nice conversation piece. In almost all cases it puts a smile on the customer’s face.
Centuries later, the Obamas, thanks to the first lady, kept a beehive on the White House lawn, near to where Woodrow Wilson used to have his sheep graze. When the Obamas left the White House, The Trumps elected not to keep the beehive, but that same year an apiary was established at the vice president’s residence, and Karen Pence, wife to Vice President Mike Pence, tends to them, just as she did back when she was first lady of Indiana. So honey bees have been consistently a bipartisan interest for centuries in the United States.
As for the debate about horses and horse-drawn carriages? The winds of change did not carry the day on that issue, and the law remained stable.
I was traveling in those weeks of late March 2010, as beekeeping classes were finished but the season had not yet begun. I was on a plane bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador, to scope out a potential Bees Without Borders project. Upon boarding my flight I picked up a copy of The New York Times, knowing that there was supposed to be a piece about legalizing New York City beekeeping in it that I was interviewed for. I did not expect the story to be on the front page, nor was I prepared for t
he response to that. I soon learned that when an individual is quoted in a front-page Times story, quite a few journalists from around the world will try to locate and interview said individual.
Soon I was receiving email from virtually everywhere—the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Australia, China, and other spots around the globe. Reporters, bloggers, students, and other beekeeping associations flooded the club’s email inbox with hundreds of requests for interviews, comments, and information. I ended up spending much of my time south of the equator commandeering the computer and telephone at a copy shop in order to field all of the requests from media regarding the legalization of beekeeping in New York City. It was eye-opening to see how powerful one article could be, and though I didn’t yet realize it, it was a herald of things to come.
When I returned to the States later in the month, it was time to pick up a hundred fully established overwintered beehives I had purchased from a retiring beekeeper in rural Pennsylvania way out near the Ohio border. This, even though my friend Tammy Horn, a well-known beekeeping expert and author from Kentucky, had told me, “Never buy bees and equipment from a retiring beekeeper. Most of them have been retiring for the last fifteen years and don’t make any repairs on anything during all that time.”
Against better judgment, my father, some friends, and I drove two trucks and trailers the nine hours from our small farm in Connecticut and arrived on this fellow’s (pronounced “feller” out there) farm in Otter Creek, Pennsylvania, just as the sun was setting. Many of the homes in the area were trailers on cinder blocks, including the home of the man from whom I was making the purchase. This feller had taken up beekeeping as a young teenager in the 1950s, when his parents were getting divorced and he felt lonely. His own son was somewhat interested in taking over but not to the extent that the father had built the business. So once cash was counted out on the kitchen table and recounted and stacked, our team screened in all the bees, loaded them onto the trucks and trailers, and turned around to head back home.
Of the hundred-strong colonies of bees we picked up—all in shabby equipment due to the beekeeper’s long-impending retirement—I had pre-sold twenty of them to the Brooklyn Grange, the largest rooftop farm in the world. Founded in part by Ben Flanner in 2010, the Brooklyn Grange is known to urban rooftop farmers around the globe. I had known Ben, a Midwesterner, since 2008, when I first placed a couple of beehives atop a small rooftop farm on Eagle Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that he cofounded and later left for greener, and much larger, rooftops.
I had been dealing with a fellow at the Grange named Chase Emmons. According to his business card, his title was “chief beekeeper.” Chase has since parted ways with the Grange and has, I am told, left the state. Regarding these twenty beehives, Chase was meant to come and pick them up the same day they arrived back east at our Connecticut farm. He failed to do so and asked me to “hang on to them a little while.” Requesting that someone hang on to twenty full, live, screened-in beehives is no small ask. Full beehives that are screened in will not stay alive too long, especially if there is a warm snap. So I unscreened the bees to allow them to take cleansing flights and gather what they needed.
They oriented to their new location, and we all waited for Chase to arrive to collect them. Finally, a week later, he arrived with two other beekeepers, both known to me. First was Stephanos Koullios, a Greek American whose father owned a furniture factory in Long Island City, Queens. Together he and I kept half a dozen beehives on the roof of the factory. And together we had filmed an episode of a BBC television series called This Human Planet, right there on that rooftop with views of the Queensboro Bridge. We had previously captured swarms together. He was a nice guy who did not seem to take too much too seriously. Also with Chase was a guy named Tim O’Neal, from Troy, Ohio. I had worked with Tim several times, too. Tim once told the New York Post, “Whenever I find a swarm in an odd location, I take it out with my bare hands.” And no doubt he said it exactly in the drawl that one would expect from a guy from Troy, Ohio.
To simply shift twenty beehives from the front yard of a suburban neighborhood into the back of a rented U-Haul truck theoretically should have posed no problem for this triumvirate of veteran beekeepers, especially since it included a valiant fellow who boasted a propensity for picking up thousands of bees barehanded.
First, the men suited up in their gear. Except for Stephanos, who had neglected to bring his. Instead, he sat eating plantain chips (plantain = banana. Banana + bees = not ideal, as the astute reader will have learned). “I know it isn’t the best idea, but these are really good.” Stephanos smiled in his own defense and offered me a chip, which I declined with a grin, envisioning their immediate future. Tim was careful to suit up and tuck his big white tube socks into his tight-fitting skinny hipster jeans. This was not a bad idea—the tucking in the socks anyway. The skinny jeans may not ever be a good idea for most men. There was not even a muted trace of the bravado he had proclaimed to the Post, but at least he was gloved and veiled and ready for action. Chase was the most dramatic looking. He donned a full-body suit advertised as sting-proof that covered him from head to toe. It was vented and thick and had rolls similar to those of the Michelin Man. Or maybe more like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. In either case, the wearer was well protected from both bee stings and dignity.
I had been ready and willing to help the three of them, mostly because I wanted the hives off my property. As we had planned and agreed for the hives to be picked up a week prior, I had left them all quite close to the road. Since they had to be unscreened so the bees could fly freely, they’d created a real nuisance for pedestrians and cyclists with their proximity to the public way. This distressed me enough to want to volunteer my time to get rid of them in spite of the fact that it was a hugely busy time of the year for me. But the fellows showed up several hours late on the day they finally managed to get to me, and by the time they seemed fully ready for action I chose to abandon them to their own devices and head to bed, as I rise quite early every day.
I said good night and left my longtime friend Anna Veccia on the porch to supervise and ensure that they took their twenty (and only their twenty) beehives. I provided crank straps, screens, and a simple but necessary tool called a hive carrier in case they needed any of these things. The idea was to screen the bees into the hives, make certain that a crank strap held each beehive together, and then for one person to get on either side of each hive. Together the two would lift it up and onto the truck. If I had been 100 percent certain that they were actually going to appear as scheduled, I would have screened the hives in for them. But after several postponements I was concerned that they might flake out again. I would then be forced to unscreen and rescreen the hives yet again. I cared very much for the welfare of the bees, and I wasn’t going to let them suffer.
The colonies were all within five to ten steps of their rented truck, with the gate only about a foot off the ground. In other words, it should have been a simple task. But apparently it wasn’t for them. Anna reported that after attempting to screen the bees in and relocate one hive over the scant distance onto their truck, their shoddy screening work came loose. The bees, naturally, attacked. Thin skin on ankles and wrists was instantly penetrated, and increasingly shrill noises emitted from the men. In fact, I could hear the shrieking in my bedroom all the way at the back of the house, until I turned on the television to drown it out. I fell asleep to the sounds of a Sopranos rerun. The next day I woke to find all of the beehives still in the front yard. One or two had been shifted from their original spots, but all were present and accounted for. Later that day Anna telephoned and reported that “watching the three wildly prance around getting stung was better than being at a cabaret. Be sure to let me know if they try again, I’ll invite some friends.”
A day or two later, Ben Flanner, the Brooklyn Grange founder, came to see me at my market at Union Square. Chase and his cohorts had been try
ing to pick up those beehives for the Grange, and Ben still wanted them. I still wanted Ben to have them. In short order Ben and I came to an agreement. I would screen in and deliver the beehives to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the Brooklyn Grange is located and where this apiary was to be. So my father, Anna, and I screened in the colonies and loaded all twenty hives onto one of my trucks without mishap. Anna drove along with me to the Navy Yard.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard is located along the East River overlooking lower Manhattan in an area called Wallabout Basin. It was once home to the Canarsee tribe of Native Americans. When the Dutch took over the area in the 1600s, a farm was established on the tribal lands.
In 1781, a shipbuilder purchased part of the farm, and by 1801 the U.S. Navy had taken over the site. In 1831, Commodore Matthew Perry began his tenure at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Commodore Perry, who commanded ships in the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War, is perhaps best known for his role in the forced opening of Japan in the 1850s through so-called gunboat diplomacy.
Ships were built, repaired, and berthed at the Navy Yard all the way up until 1966, when the site was finally decommissioned. Now a portion of the two hundred or so acres is designated as a historical site, and the rest is zoned for mixed business use. Currently the space houses, among other things, a whiskey distillery, a manufacturer of military apparel, a facility that produces and sells kitchen countertops made from recycled glass—and, of course, a rooftop farm. And, as of this day, beehives.
Anna and I arrived at the yard where we were scheduled to meet the same three fellows who had attempted to pick up the hives in Connecticut. This time, they arrived only slightly late, and they were clearly taking no chances and ready to defend against a full onslaught. Tim not only had his full gear on over his skinny jeans and shirt, he had also brought a roll of duct tape. I watched, fascinated, as he proceeded to tape his pants closed at the ankles, tape his gloves around his wrists, and even tape his jacket around his waist. He must have used half a full roll of thick black tape to seal off any possible breach in his britches into which these tiny creatures could penetrate. Misfortune, sadly, disfavors the fragile. Halfway through removing the beehives from the truck, Tim’s constricted britches split right up the middle, exposing his tighty-whities. He used the remainder of the tape to seal what remained of his modesty and slinked off, not to be seen again for the rest of the afternoon.